Shakespeare in Afghanistan, Pakistan

I’ve been going to the Illinois Shakespeare Festival for years.

It’s funny how my impressions of the plays have changed. Once upon a time, certain characters and scenes simply struck me as implausible. As the years pass, though, those same characters and scenes appear to be not quite so far-fetched.

One play that still strikes me as far-fetched is “Titus Andronicus.” I’m in good company in my feelings; no less an authority than T.S. Eliot thought the play ridiculous. Bloody and sensationalist, this revenge-tragedy tells the story of the Roman general Titus Andronicus and his gruesome revenge against the men who raped his daughter, Lavinia.

Perhaps, though, I should reconsider the play.

Journalist Nick Schifrin, who has covered the wars in the Middle East for ABC, writes in Foreign Policy how “Titus Andronicus” fits in only too well with the cycle of killing and counter-killing he’s witnessed in both countries — and how the United States has become enmeshed in what looks like an increasingly futile and costly foreign policy endeavor.

Schifrin writes:

The United States has made many of the same mistakes that Titus Andronicus and his fellow tragedians made: prioritizing revenge and killing the enemy over helping the local populations; choosing allies who help produce short-term gratification (security gains) but long-term trouble; refusing to truly engage with a population that seemed so different from themselves.

Had the Americans learned from Shakespeare’s epic of vengeance, might Afghanistan and Pakistan, where I have lived for the last three years, been less violent and more welcoming of the United States today?